22 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



dence than is afforded by this occurrence of mammoth remains to 

 justify the assertion that the Pribilof Islands, as they stand today, 

 have ever been part of a continental area during the time the mam- 

 moth lived, and we must not be too hasty in picturing the elevation 

 of the northeastern portion of Bering Sea 300-400 feet that " would 

 convert most of the present sea bottom into a vast verdure-covered 

 tundra, whose gentle undulating surface would be dotted with lakes 

 and intersected by sluggish winding streams." Though such an 

 elevation of the land to form a connection between Asia and Alaska, 

 with migration to the south in North America cut off by a barrier 

 of glaciers, would throw these two regions into the same faunal 

 province and appears to have been the condition that prevailed at 

 some time, we are far from sure that the outflows of eruptives that 

 entirely form the Pribilof group," where every scrap of physical and 

 petrographical evidence indicates the recency of the islands' forma- 

 tion, existed at an early enough date as a land surface for mam- 

 moths to roam over them. These islands have probably risen quite 

 recently from the shallow sea floor. 



It is well to remember that the two most indestructible structures 

 of the mammoth skeleton are the teeth and tusks and that these 

 are the parts found most widely scattered through recent deposits 

 because, on account of their hardness, they will stand more frequent 

 transportation by ice and water. Such remains may be carried from 

 the streams of the continent in spring by ice and be drifted for 

 miles about the sea, by currents or the gales that prevail at that 

 season, to the shores of islands. 



There is also the record already given from Grewingk that Dr. 

 Stein '^''*' reported the discovery of teeth and tusks of the mammoth 

 on the island of Unalaska in 1801. In 1904 the writer saw sections 

 of mammoth tusks in the curio shops at Nome that had been polished 

 and carved by the Eskimo of King Island in Bering Sea. The fact 

 that natives from that place sold these to dealers in Nome is the 

 basis for the statement, by the dealers, that the ivory comes from 

 King Island, but it appears most likely that the tusks were obtained 

 from the Alaskan mainland, which is visited each summer by these 

 islanders, and carried to their settlement for the purposes of manu- 

 facture and thence to Nome for sale. 



Mr. E. A. Preble of the U. S. Biological Survey informs the 



" For an account of the geology of the Pribilof Islands see Stanley-Brown, 

 op. cit. 



16-16 f rufji mineral Obst., St. Petersburg, 1830, pp. 382, 383. 



